Newsletter for 25 January 2005

Tournament of Champions Notice

Please mark your calendar for Saturday, 12 February 2005, at 11:30 a.m., for our Tournament of Champions. All top finishers from 2004 will be invited to participate in the TOC. Everybody else is welcome to come -- there will be a regular BCSD tournament alongside the TOC.

The TOC will be double elimination with a progressive 2nd chance bracket -- 9 point matches in the main, 5 point matches in the 2nd chance. Late starting matches will be clocked, similar to the regular BCSD tournaments.

Tournament News

On Tuesday, 25 January 2004, the Backgammon Club of San Diego met. 15 players entered a 16-player main tournament and an 8-player overflow tournament, with the following results:

Main Tournament (16 player bracket)

1st place:  Steve Blake
2nd place:  Eric Sedehi
3rd place:  Cyrus Mobedshahi

Overflow Tournament (8 player bracket)

1st place:  Tom Fahland
2nd place:  Jason Lee

This was Steve Blake's first outright win of the main tournament at the BCSD, and he's scored points in each of the four tournaments so far in 2005. Steve claims that he hasn't even gotten lucky yet.

The 15 player turnout was the highest of the year, matching the best turnout from 2004. This was the 9th consecutive week with double digit attendance.

Current Master Points Standings

Steve Blake       17
Henry Chaboki     12
Tom Fahland       10
Jason Lee         10
Adrian Costa      10
Eric Sedehi        7
Bruce Haight       6
Sheldon Woytek     6
Cyrus Mobedshahi   4
Osman Guner        1
Fred Kamgar        1

Steve Blake passed Henry Chaboki to take over first place in the overall standings. Tom Fahland and Jason Lee both moved into a 3rd place tie with Adrian Costa.

The point leader at the end of the year will be named the BCSD Player of the Year, and the top 16 in the Master Point standings will be invited to the 2005 BCSD Tournament of Champions, to be held in early 2006.

Player of the Month for January 2005

Steve Blake is the BCSD Player of the Month for January 2005. Steve won points in all four tournaments in January. His results were: split 3rd place in an overflow, split 1st place in the main, took 3rd place in the main, and then won the main outright in the final week to pass up Henry Chaboki, who was 2nd place for the month. Steve went 12-4 in his matches in January.

This was Steve's first Player of the Month Award. Congratulations, Steve!

Problem of the Week

+-24-23-22-21-20-19-+---+-18-17-16-15-14-13-+

+--1--2--3--4--5--6-+---+--7--8--9-10-11-12-+

Money game. Pip counts: White 119, Black 144

Last Week's Problem of the Week

Money game. Pip counts: White 162, Black 167
If you can do something useful on both sides of the board, you should do it. Hit twice, and make a point -- 24/20*/16* 8/4(2) is the right play here, but 13/9(2) is not far behind. It accomplishes everything, and Black will be in great position for whatever happens next. Black is also likely going to be cubing soon.

# Ply Move Equity

1 R 24/20*/16* 8/4(2) +0.633

0.606 0.275 0.034 - 0.394 0.087 0.003 +0.430 +0.633

0.001 0.001 0.000 - 0.001 0.000 0.000 0.002 0.005

Truncated cubeful rollout (depth 11) with var.redn.

1296 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 953477696 and quasi-random dice

Play: 2-ply cubeful 50% speed

keep the first 0 0-ply moves and up to 16 more moves within equity 0.32

Skip pruning for 1-ply moves.

Cube: 2-ply cubeful 33% speed

2 R 24/20*/16* 13/9(2) +0.614 ( -0.019)

0.613 0.253 0.026 - 0.387 0.080 0.002 +0.423 +0.614

0.001 0.001 0.000 - 0.001 0.000 0.000 0.002 0.005

Truncated cubeful rollout (depth 11) with var.redn.

1296 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 953477696 and quasi-random dice

Play: 2-ply cubeful 50% speed

keep the first 0 0-ply moves and up to 16 more moves within equity 0.32

Skip pruning for 1-ply moves.

Cube: 2-ply cubeful 33% speed

See you next week! Keep tossing those cubes,
J. Lee